Saturday, May 1, 2010

Rutger Kortenhorst, a Sanskrit teacher in John Scottus School in Dublin, speaks on the value of teaching Sanskrit to children, based on his own experience with the language.

My bet is that at the end of the hour you will all have come to the conclusion that your children are indeed fortunate that this extraordinary subject is part of their curriculum.

But first of all: why Sanskrit? To answer that we need to look at the qualities of Sanskrit. Sanskrit stands out above all other languages for its beauty of sound, precision in pronunciation and reliability as well as thoroughness in every aspect of its structure. This is why it has never fundamentally changed unlike all other languages. It has had no need to change being the most perfect language of Mankind.

The precision of Sanskrit stems from the unparalleled detail on how the actual sounds of the alphabet are structured and defined. The sounds have a particular place in the mouth, nose and throat that can be defined and will never change. This is why in Sanskrit the letters are called the ‘Indestructibles’ [aksharáni].

The qualities of Sanskrit will become the qualities of your child- that is the mind and heart of your child will become beautiful, precise and reliable.

By studying Sanskrit, other languages can be learnt more easily; this being the language all others borrow from fractionally. The Sanskrit grammar is reflected in part in Irish or Greek, Latin or English. They all have a part of the complete Sanskrit grammar.

This is how I would summarize the principles for teaching Sanskrit as we carry it out at present: 1. Language learning is not for academics as everyone learns to speak a language from an early age before they can read and write and know what an academic is. So why insist in teaching Sanskrit academically? 2. The writing script is not the most fundamental thing to be taught. A language is firstly made of its sounds, words and spoken sentences. [The script we use -though very beautiful- is only a few hundred years old.] 3. Always go from what is known to what is new. 4. Understanding works better than memorisation in this Age. Learning by heart should only take up 10 percent of the mental work, rather than the 90 percent rote learning in Sanskrit up to the recent present. 5. Don’t teach words and endings in isolation; teach them in the context of a sentence as the sentence is the smallest meaningful unit in language. 6. Any tedious memory work which cannot be avoided should be taught in a song. 7. Do not teach grammatical terms. Just as we don’t need to know about the carburetor, when we learn to drive a car. 8. The course should be finished in two years by an average student according to Narendra. This may be a little optimistic given that we are a little out of the loop not living in India, which is still Sanskrit’s custodian. At present I would say it is going to be a three-year course. 9. Language learning must be playful. Use drama, song, computer games and other tricks to make learning enjoyable.

Rutger Kortenhorst, a Sanskrit teacher in John Scottus School in Dublin, speaks on the value of teaching Sanskrit to children, based on his own experience with the language.

The electronic voting machines (EVMs) used in India are vulnerable to fraud, and it is important for votes to be counted in a manner that can be seen and verified, a group of experts said Thursday. In a collaborative study, a team of Indian and international experts has revealed that even brief access to the voting machines can allow criminals to alter election results.

These findings, they said, were at odds with the Election Commission claims that weaknesses found in other EVMs around the world do not apply to the Indian product.

This collaborative study was performed by a team of researchers from NetIndia Ltd, based in Hyderabad, the University of Michigan in the US and a non-profit organisation in the Netherlands specialising in electronic voting related issues.

The researchers said they had shown that the EVMs can be attacked, either by replacing a small part of the machine with an identical component that can be silently instructed to steal a percentage of the votes in favor of a chosen candidate.These instructions can even be sent from a mobile phone.Another attack would involve the use of a pocket-sized device to change the votes stored in the EVM between the day of polling and when the votes get counted.

More such attacks are possible. These attacks are possible despite the existence of procedural checks and safeguards that the Election Commission has introduced

Two teenagers aged 14 and 15 years allegedly strangled their 13-year old friend with a copper wire and then pinned his body to a wall using iron nails.The children were paid Rs 20,000 by a 35-year-old woman,Sabroon,to commit the murder.She was angry with the victim as she suspected he was stealing from her shop and wanted to get rid of him.The two kids have been arrested by the Vijay Nagar police on Monday.The woman is on the run.

GHAZIABAD:

Locals said Shaukat had been behaving violently lately. He had murdered over three dogs and cut off wings of birds and forced them to fly.We think he suffers from a mental ailment, said Sadiq,his neighbour. The police said the accused had been kept in separate rooms at the observation home as they feared Shaukat would behave violently.

Helpless Hindus of Perumalkovilpatti had only one option in front of them - To surrender all their material rights given by the Government , To show their anger and protest against barring them from their birth right - The right to worship.Villagers here handed over their ration cards, voter identity cards, farmer identity cards , government life and health insurance cards back to Dindugal RDO to show their protest for banning them from celebrating a small festival in Kaliamman temple. The villager’s request seeking permission to build a compound wall around Kaliamman temple and conduct a festival had been turned down by Dindugal collector. Few months back a Christian Missionaries murdered a Hindu named Aandi in front of this very same village. Dindigal Collector Vallalar who visited the area then had given permission to Hindus to construct a compound wall to protect the temple from Christian aggressors.Perumalkovilpatti (literally and ironically meaning village of Vishnu temple) is a village near Dindugal town. Here Christians are majority. So Hindus are denied their right to celebrate Pongal in their own temple.

Madhuri Gupta, the 53-year-old second secretary arrested on charges of spying for Pakistan, may have embraced Islam about six years ago, a media report has claimed. Gupta, who was posted at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad was perhaps a Shia Muslim, according to a media report. "She was really inspired by the teachings of Islam but was scared to announce her new faith," reads a report in the Post. "Her kin has very close relations with a well-known Muslim family of Ashiq Hussain Jafri in Lucknow". Ms Gupta spent her early life in Lucknow with Jafri's family where she enthused (sic) Islamic values," the Post quoted a source as saying. Gupta was spotted in the month of Ramzan by a local journalist wearing a bangle and rings which usually members of the Shia sect wear. "I am fasting and I have great respect for Islam," she told the journalist.

On April 25th,2010 Sunday, a group of Parish Priests, New York based Biblical Student group and the Thasildhar who is working in Erode District Collector Office visited

Sooriyampaalayam,Sottaiampalayam villages near Erode District,Tamilnadu and other villages around these two with colourful pamplets,brouchers stating the greatness of Christianity, benefits that can be attained when joining in Christianity, End of Democracy and Start of Jesus Kingdom all over the world and especially in Bharath (India), denigrating Hindu Gods and Hindu Customs and practices etc. They issue the pamplets,notices in the schools and in slum areas. Some group visiting each and every huts in the village and call them for small meeting where they preach these things in detail and threaten them psychologically to convert as christians.

Ranganath 28/04/2010 13:54:52 milk the conversion based churches The churches are very rich. Why don't Hindus kidnap these converting priests and demand huge ransom in return?

We all know that Pandharpur in Maharashtra is famous for its Vittal Mandir, which is under the Maharashtra Government. The Govt. of Maharashtra is doing some development work there, probably for providing better amenities for the pilgrims, which is good.However, what is shocking is that for the inauguration of the development work, at the time of performing the Bhoomi Pooja, the Govt. of Maharashtra brought 'holy' water from Vatican and Mecca (apart from holy water from all over Bharat). A concerned Hindu who watched this news in a Marathi TV channel phoned me, and expressed his anger at the bringing of water from Vatican and Mecca for a function at a Hindu Temple.The appeasement policy of Congress is going beyond limit, as is the tolerance of Hindus.

It is also reported that the Karnataka government has issued a circular directing non- Christian institutions to stop using convent tag if it is not run by Christian priests or nuns.Are not Christian institutions misusing Hindu religious terms ? Many Christian institutions are using the terms 'Ashram" "Gurukul" "Vidya Peeth" "Kshetra". These are all Hindu terms to describe their institutions and organisations. Is this not a misuse ? Hindus should be worried more so because they do not eat non - vegetarian food and liquor in their institutions, whereas that is the staple food of Christians.Similarly , Christians are misusing names of Hindu Gods and Goddesses like Amala, Nirmala, Vimala, Parmeshwar, Mahesh etc.

Hindus also should approach the courts to stop Christians from misusing their religious terms, customs and rituals.

A large number of so called "Minority Institutions" are receiving aid from the government as a routine. These are called aided institutions. Usually the salary of teachers are borne by the government, but the government gets no right to appoint teachers i.e. taxpayer's money only is welcome . These institutions are sporting Christian names, displaying Christian religious symbols and in Madrasaas it is Quran and Arabic teaching. Why should an alien language be subsidised and taught in our country ? Are the Arabs subsidising study of Hindi ? India is claiming itself to be a secular country but why is tax payers money being dumped into institutions that are free from government control and are exhibiting religious symbols ? Those institutions that get government aid,or collect capitation fee should be declared as public institutions. The public and government should have a say in these institutions.

VHP has demanded a halt to constructions overlooking the famous Sri Meenakshi temple here and demolition of existing high rise structures saying the ancient shrine could be one of the targets of terrorists.